Green Metropolis

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Plymouth International Book Festival: First Authors Confirmed

The organisers of Plymouth International Book Festival have announced the first authors confirmed to appear as part of the festival's programme of readings, talks, poetry, workshops, demonstrations, music, film, and plays this September.

Award-winning novelist, poet, short-story and children's writer Helen Dunmore, author of Orange Prize winning A Spell of Winter, The Siege and Counting the Stars. This month, her ghost story The Greatcoat was published by Hammer Books.

Children's writer and illustrator Babette Cole, whose best-selling book Doctor Dog has been made into a successful children's cartoon series, and whose other books have picked up a whole host of awards. She previously worked at the BBC creating children's programs such as Bagpuss and Watch With Mother.

American writer, artist and academic Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller's Wife, released as a film in summer 2009, and Her Fearful Symmetry, as well as a number of graphic novels and short stories. She is currently working on her third novel, The Chinchilla Girl in Exile, about a girl who suffers from hypertrichosis (excessive body hair).

The Plymouth International Book Festival runs from 15th to 23rd September 2012 and is part of a partnership project between Plymouth University, Plymouth City and Cyprus Well (the South West Literature Development Agency), which aims to bring a year long programme of literature events to the city. You can find out more at www.plymouthinternationalbookfestival.blogspot.com

Drama Online

Bloomsbury Publishing and Faber & Faber have joined forces to put together the Drama Online website (due for launch in the autumn); creating an online collection of thousands of plays, as well as critical analysis, teacher/scholarly notes and a host of tools for performers.

 Drama Online promises to provide 'a unique way to study drama', and offers a whole range of features and resources including;

• Instant access to hundreds of plays and reference works regularly updated with contemporary plays and study materials
• Expert guidance with annotated texts, scholarly editions and critical material
• Full text searching and browsing filtered by author, period, genre and theme
• Personalisation features: annotate, save, share, extract, citation options
• Rehearsal grids that illustrate when characters appear in scenes
• Detailed monologues and audition speech search
• Option to view parallel texts on screen

You can register for updates on the project by visiting the website at www.dramaonlinelibrary.com

Book to Film Adaptations in 2012

Once upon a time book fans dreaded the movie franchise; knowing that their favourite book would likely be slaughtered, pulled to pieces, destroyed and misrepresented on the big screen. Screenwriters turned stories around completely in order to make them more 'cinematic'. But book to film adaptations are different now. Directors work hard to stay true to the original text, often managing to create movies that are almost exactly as you imagined it when you read it.

So, what do we have to look forward to in 2012? Here is just a taste of the huge number of book to film adaptations coming this year:

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (from the book by Jonathan Safran Foer)

Adapted for screen by Eric Roth 

Starring Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock

After his father dies in the World Trade Center on September 11, nine-year-old amateur inventor and pacifist, Oskar, searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key he finds in his father's bedroom.

The Woman in Black (from the book by Susan Hill

Adapted for screen by Jane Goldman

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer and Ciarán Hinds

This gothic horror follows Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer, as he travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.

The Hunger Games (from the book by Suzanne Collins)

Adapted for screen by Billy Ray and Gary Ross
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth

Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match. 

The Hobbit (from the book by JRR Tolkien)
Adapted for screen by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro
Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and Richard Armitage

Peter Jackson returns to direct this first installment of the book in which Bilbo Baggins journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a group of dwarves to reclaim a treasure taken from them by the dragon Smaug.


Other upcoming book to film adaptations include Dr Seuss' The Lorax, The Life of Pi (Yann Martel), Odd Thomas (Dean R. Koontz), The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath), The Tiger (John Vaillant) and World War Z (Max Brooks).

TV Book Club Reading List Announced

The TV Book Club, returning to Channel 4 on 29th January, has announced the ten books that will be covered in the series. Viewers are encouraged to read along with the show, individually or as a group, and submit reviews of the featured books. The ten books, and the dates of the corresponding shows, are:

29th January

Before I go to Sleep by S J Watson

A psychological thriller about a woman suffering from amnesia. Each day she wakes with no knowledge of who she is and the novel follows her as she tries to reconstruct her memories from a journal she has been keeping.

5th February

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

The Sisters brothers are hired to murder Hermann Warm, a prospector. But when they find him, they discover he has developed a chemical formula for finding gold, and decide to join his prospecting operation instead.

12th February

The Somnambulist by Essie Fox

A Victorian gothic mystery that takes the reader from London to a desolate Herefordshire mansion as 17-year old Phoebe Turner embarks on a journey to unlock the darkest of family secrets.

19th February

Into The Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Catherine meets Lee who seems perfect, but there is a dark side to him which forces her to plan a meticulous escape. Four years later she dares to believe she might be safe, until one phone call changes everything.

26th February

Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles

Katey Kontent learns many things in New York in 1938, including that riches can turn to rags in the trip of a heartbeat, and that chance encounters can be fated, and the word 'yes' can be a poison.

4th March

Girl Reading by Katie Ward

Seven portraits. Seven artists. Seven girls and women reading. Each chapter takes the reader into a perfectly imagined tale of how each portrait came to be, and the connections between them.

11th March

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

1943, and an air-raid siren wails out over the East End of London. But at the tube station entrance, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. Years later, the case is reopened, and the dark truth comes to light.

18 March

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

The Fang family create art, and controversy. The two children escape, but as their lives fall apart, they are forced to return home where their parents have been planning their most ambitious project yet. And they have no choice but to participate.

25th March

Half Of The Human Race by Anthony Quinn

London 1911, and the streets ring to the cries of suffragist women marching for the vote. This is a book about men and women and their difficulties in understanding each other at a turning-point in history.

1st April

You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

Set in an international high school in Paris, the story is told in three voices: Will, a charismatic young teacher, Gilad, a student who has grown up behind compound walls, and Marie, the beautiful, vulnerable senior with whom Will is having an illicit affair.


What do you think of the list? Which books have you read? Which are you looking forward to reading?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Adapted for Stage

CS Lewis' classic novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been adapted for stage and will open in London this summer. Alongside the live action, the play will include video installations and puppetry.

The stage version is being directed by Olivier award-winning Rupert Goold, known for his acclaimed productions of Macbeth, King Lear and Oliver!

Goold said "What I hope to evoke is the power of faith and the danger of tyranny in a rougher, more elemental telling of the story". He claims that the book left a 'huge impression' on him as a child.

The play opens in a temporary big-top tent in Kensington Gardens in May and is set to run through to September.

New Year Honours List 2012

The New Year Honours list has been announced, and this year, honours in the Arts and Media sector make up seven per cent of the total.

Penelope Lively, award winning writer of fiction for both adults and children, has been awarded a DBE. Her first novel for adults, The Road to Lichfield (1977) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She was shortlisted again in 1984 with According to Mark, and won the prize in 1987 with Moon Tiger. Among her books for children are The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973), for which she received the Carnegie Medal and A Stitch in Time (1976) which won her the Whitbread Award for best children's book.

Poet and critic Professor Geoffrey Hill receives a knighthood. His poetry collections include King Log (1968) and Tenebrae (1978). In 1978, London's National Theatre staged his 'version for the English stage' of Brand by Henrik Ibsen, written in rhyming verse.

Welsh poet and playwright Dr Dannie Abse receives a CBE. He has won a number of awards for his poetry, including the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award in 2009.

Lady Rachel Billington, author and vice-president of English PEN, which supports freedom of expression and persecuted writers worldwide, is awarded an OBE. She has written both adult and children's fiction, including her bestseller A Woman's Age. She has also written television plays, screenplays and journalism.

Others recognised for services to literature are Clive James; author, poet and broadcaster, author Dr Maggie Gee, Alex Brychta; illustrator of children's books, Secretary of the Royal Society of Literature Magdalen Fergusson and writer Ernest Thompson.